A system for multicast packet management in a first switch in an overlay tunnel fabric is provided. The system can operate the first switch as part of a virtual switch in conjunction with a second switch of the fabric. The virtual switch can operate as a gateway for the fabric. During operation, the system can receive a join request for a multicast group. The system can then determine whether to forward the join request to the second switch based on a type of a first ingress connection of the join request. Upon receiving a data packet for the multicast group, the system can determine how to forward the data packet based on respective types of a second ingress connection and an egress connection of the data packet. The type of a respective connection can indicate whether the connection includes an overlay tunnel.

A network system for a data center. In one example, a method comprises establishing, by a plurality of access nodes, a logical tunnel over a plurality of data paths across a switch fabric between a source access node and a destination access node included within the plurality of access nodes, wherein the source access node is coupled to a source network device; and spraying, by the source access node, a data flow of packets over the logical tunnel to the destination access node, wherein the source access node receives the data flow of packets from the source network device, and wherein spraying the data flow of packets includes directing each of the packets within the data flow to one of the data paths based on an amount of data previously transmitted on each of the plurality of data paths.

Some embodiments of the invention provide a method of sending data in a network that includes at least one worker node executing one or more sets of containers and a virtual switch, the virtual switch including a gateway interface, a virtual local area network (VLAN) tunnel interface, and a set of virtual Ethernet interfaces associated with the one or more sets of containers. The method configures the gateway interface of the worker node to associate the gateway interface with multiple subnets that are each associated with a namespace. The worker node executes at least (1) first and second sets of containers of a first namespace, and (2) a third set of containers of a second namespace. The method sends data between the first and second sets of containers through a first virtual Ethernet interface associated with the first set of containers and a second virtual Ethernet interface associated with the second set of containers. The method sends data between the first set of containers and the third set of containers through the first virtual Ethernet interface associated with the first set of containers, the gateway interface, and a third virtual Ethernet interface associated with the third set of containers.

A method can include receiving network packets including forwarding plane packets; evaluating header information of the network packets to map network packets to any of a plurality of destinations on the module, each destination corresponding to any of a plurality of services executed by offload processors of the module; configuring operations of the offload processors; and in response to forwarding plane packets, executing operations on the forwarding plane packets; wherein the receiving, evaluation and processing of the forwarding plane packets are performed independent of the host processor. Corresponding systems and methods are also disclosed.

Example approaches for processing task deployment in adapter devices and accelerators, are described. In an example, a service request is received by an adapter device. The service request is indicative of a service associated with a virtual multi-layer network switch. An accelerator may be integrated to the adapter device or coupled to the adapter device. A set of processing tasks associated with the service is identified based on the service request. A processing task instance corresponding to at least one of the set of processing tasks is deployed in one of the adapter device and the accelerator, based on predefined configuration information. The predefined configuration information includes policies for executing each of the set processing tasks in one of the adapter device and the accelerator.

A method includes deploying a network device within a fabric having a management network by attaching the network device through the management network to a port of a role allocator, wherein the role allocator includes one or more ports designated as first level port connections and one or more other ports designated as second level port connections. If the deployed network device is attached to one of the ports designated as first level port connections, the deployed network device is configured as a first level device. If the deployed network device is attached to one of the ports designated as second level port connections, the deployed network device is configured as a second level device.

A first forwarding VM may execute in a first availability zone and have a first IP address. Similarly, a second forwarding VM may execute in a second availability zone and have a second IP address. The first and second IP addresses may be recorded with a cloud DNS web service of a cloud provider such that both receive requests from applications directed to a particular DNS name acting as a single endpoint. A service cluster may include a master VM node and a standby VM node. An IPtable in each forwarding VM may forward a request having a port value to a cluster port value associated with the master VM node. Upon a failure of the master VM node, the current standby VM node may be promoted to execute in master mode and the IPtables may be updated to now forward requests having the port value to a cluster port value associated with the newly promoted master VM node (which was previously the standby VM node).

The present invention relates to communications methods, apparatus and systems for providing media micro-services in a scalable and efficient manner. In an exemplary method embodiment, a packet plane control service entity performs the following operations: (i) receives a request from a Signaling-Session Border Controller to implement one or more micro-services on a media packet stream, the request including information about the media packet stream including stream identification information; generates instructions for one or more entities under the control of the packet plane control service entity to implement the requested one or more micro-services on the media packet stream; and communicates the generated instructions to the one or more entities under the control of the packet plane control service entity for implementation on the media packet stream.

Improved network traffic flow processing techniques are described. In a network device providing multiple processing planes, each processing plane comprising multiple processing units, techniques are described that take advantage of flow affinity/locality principles such that the same processing component of a processing plane, which previously performed processing for a network flow, is used for performing subsequent processing for the same network flow. This enables faster processing of network traffic flows by the network device. In certain implementations, the techniques described herein can be implemented in a network virtualization device (NVD) that is configured to perform network virtualization functions.

A data transmission method and an apparatus used in a virtual switch technology are provided, and the method includes: receiving an IO request of a virtual machine VM for accessing a file or a disk, and When the IO request is to be sent to a physical NIC by using a user mode Open vSwitch (OVS), converting the IO request into an Internet Small Computer Systems Interface (iSCSI) command in a user mode, and then sending the iSCSI command to the user mode OVS, where the user mode OVS sends the iSCSI command to the physical NIC.